Royal Trux

With their 1998 high-concept dirtbag-rock classic Accelerator getting reissued, Royal Trux's Jennifer Herrema and Neil Hagerty talk to Brandon Stosuy about the album, and why you might not want to hold your breath for a reunion.

Garage punks Pussy Galore were an especially important band for me when I was in my late teens, so when their guitarist Neil Hagerty teamed up with his then girlfriend Jennifer Herrema to form dirtbag rock group Royal Trux, I was paying attention. Their 1988 self-titled debut blurred past; it was their second album, the sprawling 1990 double LP Twin Infinitives, that hit home. Those 63 minutes of music taught me about where you could go with noise and how you could treat excess as something low-key, like a riot that felt more like a whisper. Importantly, it also showed me how a couple of people without a lot of money (like me) could create their own fucked up musical universe. It deeply influenced my listening habits-- I played the chaotic 15-minute psych implosion "(Edge of the) Ape Oven" on my college radio show more than just about anything else.

When you love a band in your youth, there's a tendency to be ambivalent about them getting "too big." In retrospect, this is not something I should have ever worried about with Royal Trux, but, years later, when the duo signed a deal with Virgin as part of the post-post-Nirvana major-label feeding frenzy, and released 1995's slightly smoother Thank You, I was concerned. They followed that album with the disgusting, vomit-in-a-toilet cover and hazier 1970s weirdness of 1997's Sweet Sixteen, which was very reassuring. Then, as if they'd written the "fuck you" script in advance, they used Virgin's money to make 1998's warped, 1980s-riffing Accelerator, but, thanks to some canny legal wrangling, ended up releasing it on the band's original home, Drag City.

That label recently reissued Accelerator without any bonus tracks and very little fanfare, and I wanted to talk to the band about what it's been like revisiting the past. I phoned Herrema, who's recorded her post-Royal Trux music as RTX and Black Bananas, and emailed with Hagerty, who's gone on to release music under his name and the Howling Hex, and then combined the two interviews.

"As for a Royal Trux reunion, it will never happen. It is just too depressing." -- Neil Hagerty

Pitchfork: I've read that when you signed with Virgin, the idea was that Thank You was a comment on the 60s, Sweet Sixteen on the 70s, and Accelerator on the 80s. How did you go about commenting on the 80s with Accelerator?

Jennifer Herrema: We were only signed to Virgin for a three-album deal, and we set those parameters-- 60s, 70s, 80s-- to see where we were at that time; it was more conceptual than anything. I mean, none of those records particularly sound like those decades, but we employed different methods and utilized different signifiers of those decades. Like, on Sweet Sixteen, every song was four minutes, which was a reference to the 70s, where AM radio would play tons of songs that were that long. And at the time we were making it, a three minute song was pushing it.

As far as Accelerator, when listening to the radio in the 80s, everything seemed to have a semi-pop ease. Nothing was very difficult; the music on the radio didn't take me to depths, it just had a pop sensibility. So we would run any given pop song-- whether it be the Archies, Britney Spears, Duran Duran-- through a spectrum analyzer and actually see the peaks and valleys, and what dictated that pop sensibility as far as EQ and dynamics. Then we'd run our stuff through the same spectrum analyzer and clamp down on compressing to make them visual reproductions of particular pop songs.

Neil Hagerty: The songs on Accelerator also attack the mentality of the 80s, the way all the perverted conservative ideology that is so common now started to creep in and infect the psychology of America. And the "triptych" concept was really just a protection process so we'd stick with some stupid rigid plan for the music despite whatever happened to the records and our relationship with Virgin-- so that we would not react/overreact to how we were treated or the reception we received. The deal was structured so we got paid big money whether we sold 11 copies or one million, so we had a three-LP "plan" in place for ourselves so we wouldn't freak out once we got on the rollercoaster-- all those execs and biz people try to get inside your head and fuck things up.

Pitchfork: The time period when I was very much into Royal Trux was when all these independent groups started getting signed to major labels. You guys signed with Virgin in the mid 90s, after a bit of the frenzy died down, but what was it like for you to be approached by someone like that?

NH: We waited through at least two cycles of indie bands getting signed-- and we turned down a few earlier deals in the 80s-- until we were at a peak in the post-Nirvana-death market. Weird how it works, but our only intention for a major deal was getting money. I would not have worked with a major unless we had a deal like the one we got, lots of money frontloaded to us.

JH: The first label that actually sent money and approached us was Geffen [Records]. But Dan Koretzky, founder of Drag City, was our manager and the one fielding all the major label phone calls at the time. When we had our third meeting with Geffen, Dan was like, "Dude, get out of that meeting, you have to come meet this guy Kaz Utsunomiyaover at Virgin. He's the real deal." So we did, and he was down with whatever we wanted to do, hence our amazing contract. But he was gone shortly after that, so then we were dealing with people that were like, "Why don't we do a white trash video with slippers and curlers in the trailer park, and get her to do photographs with Larry Clark"-- all this marketing bullshit. We said no to everything. We weren't doing it to be assholes, it just wasn't us.

Watch a vintage Accelerator commercial:

Pitchfork: You started making Accelerator with Virgin but it was released on Drag City. What's the story behind that?

JH: We dictated the whole thing, actually. We requested to be let out of the contract after Sweet Sixteen. We knew that [Virgin] couldn't get their head around what we were doing. But having signed the contract for three records, they were going to have to pay us for a third record no matter what. And in the contract, we were given total artistic free reign-- we'd administer our own budgets and we didn't have to have them sign off on anything.

So after Sweet Sixteen came out, we basically freaked the fuck out of [Virgin]. We told them that we were going to make this other record right now, and that we were going to do it on eight tracks with no producer. Then we'd have the lawyer convince them that it would be easier for them to give us all the money for that record and not have to spend anything to promote it. That was our game. So we got exactly what we wanted, because the record was paid for by Virgin, even though it wasn't even started when we got the money. Then we went about recording it however we wanted and finished up the trilogy as it were.

NH: It wasn't really a relief to get away from Virgin since we had a good deal-- I think they were pretty lame though. Our [Virgin] deal was for two LPs straight out, then they had an option for the third, but they had to decline by a certain date. We got paid one fee if they declined, one fee if they accepted-- and then if they declined, they had to buy out the remaining options on our contract. If they had stuck with the contract, they would have put out Accelerator, Veterans, and Pound4Pound-- all of which would have been done with bigger producers, and they might have eventually been able to break one of them. But fuck them.

JH: A lot of people thought the cover of Sweet Sixteen was a "fuck you" to Virgin, but it never was. I love Virgin. They were nothing but amazing to the extent that they could be. The photograph was supposed to emulate my 16th birthday-- when I was 16, we had this huge party with lots of acid and alcohol. So, for the cover, I just took a lot of chocolate sauce and chilies and Tabasco sauce and put it all in the toilet, put the icing on it, and had my friend photograph it.

Pitchfork: What's it like having this old music resurface when you've pushed on to other things?

JH: It's interesting. I haven't gone back and listened to Accelerator for the purposes of this reissue because I am in the middle of finishing a new Black Bananas record and I don't listen to a lot of music when I'm recording. But another reason I didn't go back is because it takes you out of the present to another place and time, and that's kind of counterproductive to me.

I enjoy the fact that the records are still around and people are still thinking about them because the last time I did listen to Accelerator, a couple of years ago, I was struck by how it didn't sound dated. A friend put it on, and I was out on the back deck, and I was like, "Ah, that sounds cool." And all of a sudden I was like, "Shit, that's what that is!" It still sounds really fresh to me, and that's the way I felt about it at the time.

NH: I have not listened to Accelerator in a long, long time. But several of the songs are liable to pop up in my head when I'm on a long walk or doing the dishes. Brain-radio hits from Accelerator include: "Ready", "Follow the Winner", "Another Year", and "New Bones".

Pitchfork: Was there a conscious decision to present it as the album as it originally was and not include bonus tracks on any of your recent reissues?

NH: To be honest, I hadn't been keeping up with their reissue schedule until this one came up. And since we already have a box set full of live things and singles, there are precious few unreleased tracks.

JH: We did want to present it as it initially was, but at the same time, we haven't gone back and done any digging at all. The reissues are being done by Domino and Drag City, and they go about their business and are like "Is this cool?" and we're like "OK." Other than that, it's in their hands. At some point, maybe we'll go back. I actually just found the multi-track [tapes] to Accelerator over at my studio, I had them in this huge tupperware tub.

Pitchfork: Is the closing song on Accelerator, "Stevie (For Steven S.)", actually for Steven Seagal?

JH: Yeah, I name songs for things that I get obsessed with. I just think that he's a fuckin' freak. He is. I love him, nothing he does would surprise me, and that's one of the things I wrote the song about. I don't obsess over him anymore, though. He served his purpose.

NH: That song is written from the point of view of someone in the far Midwest who is seriously touched by what Seagal represents and writes this heartfelt, 80s-style power-ballad in his honor. Writing it was a way of just trying to have empathy for them.

Pitchfork: Neil, what's the story behind "Yellow Kid"?

NH: Originally, that song was called "Black Quarterback". Back then, the racist concept was prevalent that black quarterbacks didn't possess the skill set required to stand in the pocket. You'd hear that shit all the time, just disgusting racist assholes pontificating at length about it. So I did a song in Woody Guthrie style, a mournful populist lament for a neglected hero. Eventually, though, I changed it because it seemed too humorless, political, and pretentious. We changed the name to "Yellow Kid", from that old 19th-century comic strip by Richard F. Outcault, about an immigrant slum kid who spoke in slang. Then I thought it was more universally about underdogs of all times.

Pitchfork: What about "Liar"?

NH: I wrote that song when I was in high school in my punk rock band. For Royal Trux, we changed the lyrics to be from a pathetic point of view, from someone who is just simply scandalized by people who lie to your face, which was a very conservative thing that was coming into vogue in the 80s-- lying for the "greater goal." I always pictured the singer of this song to be from Cleveland, like they can't believe the world is crumbling around them and they stand up and call out the liars to no avail whatsoever. It's like that Sex Pistols song ["Liar"] but with pathos.

JH: I've always been fixated with bananas. When I wrote the song "Black Bananas", lyrically, it was about myself and the way I work. I had been arrested and we had to do community service at the Southern California river beds, which are empty. There's no water. I was a supervisor, so we'd go down there and clean up the river beds, and they were coming up with the most amazing shit, like really old vintage leather footballs and glass marbles. There was a pair of old, denim overalls from I-don't-fucking-know-when, but I took them home and put them out in the sun. So ["Black Bananas"] is just about the realization that there's a lot of stuff that people throw away; I just tried to find the beauty in the discarded.

Pitchfork: So many bands are getting back together now, would Royal Trux consider it?

JH: No. We've been offered a few times, but it just doesn't make sense to me. Royal Trux was something that existed in time-- a relationship, a partnership, a chemistry-- and that doesn't exist right now.

NH: I am doing one show in New York in December where we are playing Twin Infinitives all the way through. It's just me from the original band, but I have found total reincarnations of the other members-- it is really uncanny. It just happened that I met these characters recently and it seemed so perfect. It will be Royal Trux from 1988. But, as for a reunion, it will never happen. It is just too depressing.

Pitchfork: People talk about Royal Trux subverting classic rock, were you consciously trying to be subversive?

NH: No, we just absorbed everything in that era cuz we grew up on them-- that was our musical vocabulary and we wanted to extend it and try and make something good with it.

Pitchfork: Looking back, what do you think about Royal Trux's legacy now? Do you think you were ahead of your time?

NH: We had a plan and we stuck to it. It worked for a while and then drugs broke the band up. We could have gone on indefinitely and I guess we would have caught up to the times eventually and had a hit or something, but it was not to be.